Jim Harbaugh & Michigan Are National Champs, But Everyone Knows The Refs Heavily Favored The Sign-Stealing Wolverines

Matt Fitzgerald·
CULTURE
·
Michigan
ESPN

The Michigan Wolverines are national champions. They spanked Washington 34-13.

Now all the speculation about Jim Harbaugh staying in Ann Arbor or fleeing for the NFL can begin.

But damn. That was as ugly of a natty as you’ll ever see. At least Georgia’s 65-7 blowout of TCU had a hilarity factor.I guess the only humorous element to this dud of a game was how the officiating crew committed an epic feature-film length comedy’s worth of errors.

As amazing as Huskies quarterback Michael Penix Jr. played in the CFP semifinals, he was awful on Monday night. Blew a wide-open touchdown on fourth down early on. Began the second half with a careless interception, just as Washington had wrested back the momentum. Penix wasn’t sharp enough for his team to win anyway. And. AND… the refs made it a lot easier on the Wolverines by swallowing their whistles all evening.

Your head will spin when you see how on one of Michigan’s TD runs and its biggest pass play of the night, they got away with blatant holding penalties.

…And how about this one on the big chunk run Blake Corum ripped off early on?

Trot JJ McCarthy off the field, put his backup in there for a little designed quarterback run game? Success, thanks to another uncalled hold.

Meanwhile, the Huskies couldn’t buy a call, or get any consistency from the zebras…

Sorry but it was hard to take this game seriously at all.

With how ridiculously skewed the officiating was to Michigan’s benefit, you can’t help but think about how this 15-0 perfect season is also marred by TWO suspensions served by Harbaugh. The second one was for a sign-stealing scandal. Like, think about that for a second. What the hell?

I’m being a little facetious about all the sign-stealing nonsense, but come on. You can’t deny how funny it looks that the Wolverines appeared to pay off the refs with that sort of illicit Connor Stalions gamesmanship going on behind the scenes.

It’s not like this is the rantings and ravings of a conspiracy theorist nut. Look at all the people who happened to notice Monday’s refereeing travesty.

Even the most honest man on Earth, Patron Saint of football Tim Tebow, saw it:

To me, all these are egregious. What a bummer for a championship to be so heavily decided by a one-sided officiating crew. Oh well. Go Blue, I guess.

Can’t blame Michigan’s players. They were playing the cards they were dealt, and shut down Washington’s elite passing attack. Penix was frazzled to such a degree where, in his sixth year of college ball, he was spraying off-target throws all over the place with no regard for passing mechanics whatsoever. Complete pretzel brain. Not taking anything away from how the Wolverines played this one out.

…All I’m saying is, I could point to a blatant infraction on damn near every significant offensive play Michigan made in this game.

So could a lot of people with eyeballs who were watching…

 

A beer bottle on a dock

MORE FROM WHISKEY RIFF

WHISKEY RIFF RAFF PODCAST

WHISKEY RIFF SHOP

NEWSLETTER

ABOUT US

THE TEAM

STAY ENTERTAINED

A RIFF ON WHAT COUNTRY IS REALLY ABOUT

A beer bottle on a dock